Journeyman Painting Log # 1

Ready to leap into your backfield and eat your mens.

A date long circled passed this weekend, the start of painting for our local Journeyman league.  My intention to get everything, or at least a lot of things, assembled and primed to hit the ground running didn't turn out so well.  I managed to assemble Saeryn and a Spell Martyr, another two Spell Martyrs that need some gap plugging and general reinforcement, plus a unit of Legionnaires that needs some pinning, and a min unit Spawning Vessel that's about half done.  Not exactly an overwhelming start.  I've managed to get some painting in though, so all is not lost.  Foremost is the Raek, which is all but finished, that I got done over the weekend.  Obviously the base needs to get done, plus arc markings, but other than that it's finished.

Finally getting some paint after much good service.

Today I got started on the Seraph and pVayl.  They almost felt the caress of the brush this weekend instead of the Raek, but then I took a second to consider that I'd be taking at least one, and probably both, of them to a tournament on Sunday (details to come).  If I'd be able to finish and seal both then it wouldn't be an issue, but I doubted my ability to do so and thus left them alone until today.  Since I love the Seraph so much on the table, I've been wanting to paint it for quite a while.  Now that I'm finally working on it I'm less enamored.  The wings are a bit awkward, especially the tips which seem like they should be claws but aren't sculpted that way.  It's also taking longer than I expected, especially when compared to other beasts that I've done.  That said, I'll probably still finish it off the next time I sit down to paint.  The skin (aka 90% of the model) is half done and everything else (except the gums and random purple lining) has at least a base coat down. 

A beginning.

Painting one model at a time isn't something I normally like to do.  I always end up with more paint than I need on my palette, so I like to have a second model to use the overflow on.  This time around that second model is pVayl, who is the caster I've run the most behind Absylonia.  I didn't do a lot of work on her today, just soaking up the extra paint, but that's all I really aimed to do.  I'm going to incorporate more purple into her scheme than usual as befits someone of her standing in Everblight's ranks.  The Occulus is causing a bit of head-scratching as I try to figure out what color to paint it.  Orange seems appropriate, but I'm also thinking of purple.  It would also be a good place to work in the electric blue I wanted to base my scheme on but ended up not using.

I have some stuff that needs priming, but the weather looks like it's not going to cooperate.  To get around this problem I may look to something I've been meaning to try for a while: gesso.  Spud's video over at Lost Hemisphere reminded me about gesso, so I'll get a bottle tomorrow and see how it works.  If nothing else it should be handy for getting the spots the spray misses or recovering the bits that have worn off with use.